A chapter in author Renee Weisman”™s lipstick and cigar-laden book “Winning in a Man”™s World” comically coins her take on work-life balance ”“ “I Wish I Had a Wife.”
The remaining chapters center on good career habits, how to delegate, leadership skills and working through gender differences.
“When I realized something was an issue, I wrote it down,” Weisman said of tackling tough career questions through years spent with Armonk-based IBM. “When you learn science, there are certain rules that get you the results you need without having to change who you are.”
As a business leadership consultant, the Poughkeepsie resident and principal of Winning at Work, a leadership consulting firm, further expands lessons learned from yesteryear through gigs with the Society of Women Engineers, Pfizer, Deloitte and Touche and Deutsche Bank in New York City.
Drawing from technical experience “as a distinguished engineer concerned about semiconductor packaging,” Weisman said her compilation partially stemmed from noticeable gender differences in the workplace.
“I was the first woman in a very large engineering group,” Weisman said. “I learned I had to get my point across effectively and change things to get the results I needed.”
Though admitting a desire to avoid generalization, Weisman said that men tend to think in a straight line, while women go a circuitous route.
“There is a chapter for men who work with women and ways to get your point across,” she said. “Now that I”™m doing consulting, I want to try and help business men and women work more effectively together.”
When approached by IBM to speak at the Business Education Partnership event of the Greater Southern Dutchess Chamber of Commerce”™s Educational Foundation in July, Weisman was interested.
“IBM has always been active with trying to get more students into math and science,” Weisman said. “The point of the BEP is to get more teachers into science and technology.
“They asked me to talk about gender differences,” she said. “If you want to capture women and get them into technical fields, you have to understand gender differences. Men and women mature at different rates and absorb different information.”
Add a 21st-century shift away from engineering in the U.S., Weisman said, and initiatives like the Business Education Partnership are more important than ever.
“I”™ve watched the country change and even though we”™re still strong in the legal and medical professions, there has been a move away from engineering,” Weisman said.
Overall engineering employment is expected to grow by 11 percent from 2006 to 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
